Politics should be morally intrinsic

I asked one of our brightest young family daughters, who is working in US, what was the most difficult conundrum faced by your generation in the US. She told me that their generation in US was not an analogous entity.

However, one common question they face on daily basis was that ‘to be or not to be’. ‘Was that the pull of distant nationalism’, I just tried to explore. ‘It could be, but more powerful reasons are working in a place that is molded in the vagaries of market and then cultural grooming of our children is a big challenge. It is all the time filled with uncertainties and give you every rationale to get you disconnected with the past that you had in your native country’, she replied. These are hard questions of living outside your home country.

The problems of tough settlement with conditionality of layoff and green card predicaments at what cost, possibly at the cost of disconnect with the future generations. The irony is that when they intend to come back, they find their country following the same footprints of uncertainties and fluidity of relationships. The choice of return becomes very difficult. The powers of globalization, privatization and the state apparatus of security and conditioned freedom have become new mode of life, everywhere in the world. The choice of return or no return hugely is determined by the personal life chances and precept of materiality, which shapes their existing mode. The process of globalization has unleashed many debates to revisit, including the contest of national building process. For, nationalism is an organic belongingness to the shared blend of cultural past and its deep sense of marching together into future with possibilities and certainties.

Had there not been National Movement, possibly India would have been an amalgam of small independent states, like replica of Gulf and West Asian countries with Hindu taxonomy. The credit goes to the degenerative and regenerative process of British Colonial Rule that produced educated middle class across the length and breadth of the country. It generated early Reform Movements, first in Bengal then western side and finally in the heartland of Punjab. Reformation set the agenda of educated middle class that was transformed by the arrival of Gandhi ji into a well sustained longest movement against colonial rule. The social formation that became the structure for the National Movement had a blend of redefined renewed tradition that has organic linkage to the past connected with its cultural and spiritual capital. Despite being a colonial renaissance, its leaders were spiritual with flawless integrity and served for the betterment of multitudes of people by invoking the reinterpreted tradition. Brahamo Samaj, Prathana Samaj, Arya Samaj and Mohmmadan reformation, though partially among Muslims, in sequence laid the foundations for the National Movement.

India achieved freedom with partition of the country. The process of democratization opened out the contradictions of the old society and challenges of the new emerged new nation- state. Since 1950s with the establishment of our constitution, the country has passed through many strides. It has moved from mixed economy of centrist state to the left right swings of privatization and liberalization in the closing decades of the previous century. With Decentring and political articulations of regional aspirations, country could retain its unity in diversity with strong centre and a political army. The credit goes to our political leadership right after independence to see India moving; despite the huge challenges it faced both at peripheries and in the heartland that its diversities became the center of its inertia for the national integration.

What is this new stride that would be known as Modi Era? Gandhi ji launched the National Movement against strong British colonial subjugation, exactly one hundred years after, Modi has invoked Civilization strength to counter the dissipating tendencies as well as usher economic revolution. Reform movements, social as well as religious set the plank for Gandhi ji’s National Movement, while liberalization, privatization and globalization were the background for Modi ji’s arrival. The setting was laid by Prime Minister Narsimha Rao and Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh, so that agenda setting for new priorities based on economics and security did not become intricate. It needed courage and sagacity for making a point of departure. Agenda does not look as profane as it was painted by his critics.

It has achieved its initial accomplishment, in a sense that people cutting across religious and regional lines have value for peace, security and worth added to Indian passport. The claims of development with altogether prosperity are partially realized. It has to go down without blockades from middle rung bureaucracy to middle rung party organization structures. Language in democratic system is very important. Leadership is known by the language it uses. Nobody would like to see empty House. Parliament without opposition is limped democracy. The opposition has every right to demand answers from the government.

The significance of arrival of Modi is not coincidental that exactly after one hundred years, India is taking a new stride to understand and accommodate the peripheries, minorities and diversities, while redefining its tenets of nationalism. It is a delicate issue needs intensive debates and discussions across religions and regions in the parliament or outside parliament. Indian nationalism has come to an age with its rooted democratic system. Gandhi ji had diagnosed the Colonial subjugation, as a result of moral weakness of Indian society and its supportive elites. Sh. Manoj Sinha, LG of Jammu and Kashmir in his conversations with an informal intellectual meet on similar lines described ‘Modi ji’s arrival on Indian national scene, essentially, a rise on moral plank.

According to him prior to Modiji’s arrival, the power elite had gone morally bankrupt, alleged with corruption charges and attitude to the national security was very callous. He argued that ‘Was it not moral bankruptcy of ruling elite that a highly rated Community was driven out from their homes and Power elite remained morally insolvent to understand their pain and its ramification’? Moral construction is more important in Sh. Manoj Sinha’s conviction to describe the decadence and reemergence of a society in Kashmir context. His conversations were round to this Gandhian morality praxis, trusteeship for private public partnerships and reformation through identified social traditions. He was of the opinion that celebrating national festivals of tradition and communities are like imbibing the spirit of Indian renaissance for reformation and nation rebuilding. But then Muslims of Kashmir are different, both in class and aesthetics, because of their historicity and genealogy. LG has that advantage and challenge as well. It seems that he has remarkably met that challenge and utilized the advantage.

It augurs well to find new voices to defend the strength of Indian civilization. What a treat it is to read Shashi Tharoor’s books and listen to Mr Javed Akhtar on patriarchy, emergence of Urdu literature and accommodation of different and contesting philosophical epistemes to reveal the strength of Indian society; while discussing Firaq, Charvakya and constructions of patriarchy in public spaces. Religion, Patriarchy and nationalism are mixed categories. Its deconstruction and new adjustment with market mechanism and artificial intelligence design in the era of globalized world need meticulous academic explorations.

It is important, for India is not America with little history and dipped in Creole nationalism and experimenting with failed melting pot thesis. Ours is civilizational society, full with diversities and rich in traditions. Our introspection on moral grounds has to be an uninterrupted process.

We have lot of people without purchasing power and there are lots of concerns that have moral considerations. Insecurity syndrome among Muslim middle and upper classes and illiteracy conditions among subalterns, despite progress in materiality remain ethical concerns. It needs redress at governing level. Of course not in Kashmir, where education among Muslims have struck firm roots.

Educated middle-class and business people are visible owning properties in every big city of the country. They are coming out from frozen hibernation, ready to move anywhere out from the valley for jobs and opportunities. They are assets to the nation, provided regenerative politics strikes roots in the valley. And politics becomes moral intrinsic in the state as well as at the centre. India is the most beautiful place to live in.Prof. Ashok Kaul, Retired Emeritus professor of Sociology, Banaras Hindu University